a silverfish named Eli, some bleach and Chico in trouble AGAIN

I am a bit of a germphobe, neat freak, whatever. I like everything clean, lined up, polished and in order.

I live in the attic loft of an old heritage house. There are seven suites here. One of the tenants, who is moving in January, doesn’t want us to use anything harmful to the environment to get rid of these lovely SilverSharks! Sigh.

By January, I will have gone so mad that I will have burned down the damned house.

Anyways,

Chico.

Silly Chico has been working fifteen hour days. His office is ten blocks from my home so he has been staying here instead of making the hour and half commute to his own home every day.

I absolutely Love, love, love having my best friend around. But he has some unusual habits.

I went to the bathroom after he left the other day. What do I find?

Big white splotches on my beautiful taupe bath mat!

Hm. Smells like bleach.

WTF?

Me: “Hey Cheek. What were you doing with bleach?”

Chico: “Killing silverfish.”

Me: “You do know bleach wrecks fabric?”

Chico: “They cannot live in bleach. And anyways, he was saying bad things about you.”

Me: “NOTHING can live in bleach. That is the idea of bleach. And the reason I like it so.”

Me: “Wait a minute, whoa, who was saying bad things about me?”

Chico: “Eli.”

Me: “Eli?”

Chico: “Eli the silverfish. He had to die.”

Me: Shaking head and picturing Chico on the toilet with his pants around his ankles throwing capfuls of bleach at a silverfish named Eli …”I appreciate the protection of my character, but could we leave the bleach alone? I had to throw out my bathmat.”

Chico: “Fine.”

Me: “Seriously. No.MORE.BLEACH. The towel I put down on the floor to temporarily replace my pretty bathmat now has bleach stains too. STOP.IT.”

Two days later. He left for work. I start to get up. What is that smell? Fuck. Bleach. Again.

Me: “Chico. You did it again.”

Chico: “You smelled it huh?”

Me: “I always leave things on the shelf with the labels pointing out. The bleach was moved and yes, I could smell the bleach.”

Chico: “Labels eh? Thats kind of weird.”

Me: “You are killing silverfish named Eli with bleach – that TALK to you! And I’m weird???”

Chico: “Maybe you should take the bleach out of the bathroom. I cannot seem to stop. I even wrecked my shirt and my black socks.”

20 or so years ago we had a problem with slugs in our backyard. 100’s and 100’s of them. It got so bad that you didn’t dare walk outside barefoot after dark (not that I do that a lot, anyway). Finally after hearing the familial complaints, and stepping on one when I stepped just a few feet out the back door to put a trash bag in a can, I went to war.

I had always heard you should pour salt on them to get rid of them. Since there were so many, that wasn’t going to work as it would have looked like it snowed in June. So I got a dishpan and poured two cannisters of salt in it, took the shovel that we used to pick up after our dogs, and started picking up slugs and flipping them into the dishpan. The first night I eliminated over 700 of them. The next night it was over 400. The third night it was 300. The fourth it was close to 200, the next it was just over 100. After that I was starting to have to really look to find any! So I declared victory. All these years later we see a few each summer, but not many…

In the midst of all that, though I seldom have dreams I can remember, I dreamt there was a slug the size of an elephant chasing me with a canister of salt!

I just can’t believe you have those bugs in your house. I think I could deal with spilled bleach rather than sleeping with one of those bad boys.
Yu-uck!
The conversation is hilarious… oh to be a silvershark on the wall…

Lepisma saccharina (generally known as the fishmoth, urban silverfish or silverfish) is a small, wingless insect generally measuring from half to one inch (12-25 mm). http://www.silverfish-insect.info/